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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

okay enough drooling over vera wang. although im tempted to write about her fall 2011 collection, i think i finally need to move on, haha! because today, i officially had my first fitting. *hee!* and in all honesty, kinabahan ako, for whatever reason i don't know. half excited, and half still in disbelief that i am getting married, and that yes, i was about to fit the prototype of the wedding gown of my dreams. woohoo!

my designer of choice is no secret, so i'm now taking all the freedom in the world to write this entry without fear of retaliation (hehe) from no less than capital B for spilling even more deets about our wedding. if we were a corporation (in fact, we almost are!), we probably would have signed a non-disclosure agreement stating that i am not by all means, allowed to tell the world who our suppliers will be, in order to avoid setting unrealistic expectations blah blah blah... the works. anyway i think i've said a mouthful for an intro already, so yes, moving on to my story...

when i got engaged, the first (natural) thing i did was to scour the internet for wedding gowns. admit it or not, that's probably the first thing any newly engaged girl will do in the name of wedding planning. i got engaged on a saturday night, so i spent the following sunday afternoon looking through blogs and photos, etc. and very first email i sent was to this young designer whose work i've seen through a friend's wedding. that designer happens to be veejay floresca.

three weeks later, we met. we talked. he sketched. and i never looked back, haha! after that i just didn't bother looking for another designer-- not for me, not for my entourage, nor for bryan. so yes, veejay's doing the whole shebang! :P

so why veejay? he's young, uber talented, and i love his design aesthetic. aside from being so easy to work with, i probably really chose him because i knew he was OC and no less than a perfectionist (such as myself). now i am reeeeeaaaaalllyyy looking forward to seeing how my gown will turn out. and the entourage. and my lovee's suit, which hopefully will make him as gorgeous as brad pitt in meet joe black! HAHAHA :D

unfortunately, i have no photos to share today. besides, zee dress must be kept secret until the day of the wedding itself... a la royal wedding. but for now, i can say i am a happy bride to bee :)

Friday, June 24, 2011

back in january vera wang released WHITE-- her drop dead gorgeous yet budget-friendly wedding gown line via davidsbrial.com and i just instantly fell in love with them and this whole idea of having a vera wang gown for only 1000 USD. that just totally freaked me out :D imagine a PhP 40-50k gown that had vera wang's signature style all over it!!!?!? i would sooo want to wear it ten million times! well one of those dresses that won my heart was this pink organza dress with flange (is that what you call it?) skirt that kinda formed a huge rose at the bottom. ahk. *loveatfirstsight*

(Photo from davidsbridal.com)

fortunately (or unfortunately) one of my friends/ officemates who was also getting married had some troubles with her designer, and decided to have this dress shipped by her parents from the US. lucky lucky lucky! here are some photos of the same dress in ivory. be prepared to drool! :)

ah wait, but there's more! yesterday i checked davidsbridal and there are new stuff from vera wang! aside from bridal gowns, her white collection now carries bridesmaid dresses and other accessories as well. but we'll get to the bridesmaid dresses later. take a good look at these new gowns first. sigh!

(Photos from davidsbridal.com)

zooming into the first dress you will find that the bodice is made of this beautiful corded lace. aside from textured skirts, i am absolutely in love with lace. if i was any bit taller i just might have chosen to have an all-lace fitted gown. gorgeous and red-carpety. but im not tall, so scrap that idea :P

now onto the bridesmaid dresses. short and sweeeeet. although i would not want to have these for my wedding, they sure make for lovely cocktail dresses. i want! :)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

since my left brain called in sick today, little miss right brain decided to show up and show off a little bit. i spent the afternoon doodling on photoshop when i came across the invite studies i made for my brother's wedding last year. note that i'm only posting a study-- meaning it didn't quite make it to the printer but i think it can still be used for other weddings :) i've also added a few which i came up with just now. send me a message if you like any of them and i might just give you an offer! :)

i particularly like the pattern on the first set so i resurrected it as a wedding invite sample for ours. we're not using it of course since capital B refuses to use any flourishes for the invite. we will have very plain ones for sure as i've always wanted ours to just be simple and straightforward. the second one is our version of it in teal. it actually looks better this way don't you think?sharing some other stuff i did today... if you notice, i'm partial to bordered invites right now.

ps. if you like them, we can talk about printing and prices and whatnot. after all, our little baby cevadesigns is currently expanding and looking for new opportunities and design projects to keep our right brains in check ;)

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

let's take a break from wedding planning shall we?or should i say... let's just fast forward to renovating the condo?!? :P

since capital B and i are already done booking ALL our suppliers, and i feel like i've scoured the internet (and the w@w archives!) for every last bit of advice and other insider information on who's who and what's cool in the wedding industry, i've decided to take a *quick* break from all this wedding shmedding stuff. so i've moved on (at least for now) to checking out home furniture and other household stuff instead... *evil laugh*

am i fast or am i fast? :P i'd like to think i'm just bored and in bad need of some amusement. and as b and i are self professed design freaks i'd like to share some stuff we've seen around. :)

let's start with one of my favorites. there's just so much to see in mydesignfolder.com i'd like to copy and paste all their entries here! HAHA! but of course, i've got to pick. one of their recent posts featured a designer's condo and his bar table separating the kitchen from the dining is definitely something i'd want for my own! or B's condo that is :P definitely something we're keeping an eye on. here's how it looks.

(Photo from mydesignfolder.com)

i'm also loving the stainless steel appliances with the wood finished cabinetry. the backsplash is a little too dark for our taste though. i'd like to have mosaic tiles for ours. :) ahh... anything to make the kitchen a more enticing work environment for me! now to learn how to cook... :P

next up is the ever so colorful heima store which unfortunately was closed when we tried visiting them in LRI plaza. im also loving their other website heiminteriors.com which features their design works obviously incorporating the products that you can find in their store. heima's aesthetic is very close to that of cevadesigns, or at least what we envision for the company. :P who knows one day we can work with them. and hopefully someday we can churn out colorful and functional home stuff as well. PRETTY SOON I HOPE! :D

(Photo from heiminteriors.com)

lastly, although i'm not surprised we have an ikea reseller around, i found this link today that some of you might be interested in: ikeaph.multiply.com.

ok that's it, enough daydreaming for now! :) let's see if tomorrow will lead me back to snooping around wedding blogs and whatnot.

Monday, June 20, 2011

one of the first few things we did when we started our wedding preps was to list down all the suppliers we needed (venue, food, photo, video, etc.) based on my brother's wedding worksheet from the previous year, and individually rank them based on priority. luckily, bryan and i had the same top three priorities-- church, venue, and food. but everything else after that was a mismatch! :P

so in an effort to secure ourselves the date he wanted (ah, yes agreeing to "the date" is a different story altogether :P) we set off in early january to search for the perfect church and reception venue. we went around manila looking for an old/ historic church, not too big, not too small, should have a beautiful altar, with decent parking, and lastly, it had to be airconditioned! (these were bryan's requirements btw :P) it took quite a few weekend trips around manila and makati before we finally decided on Manila Cathedral and Manila Peninsula's The Conservatory. but before that, i wanted to share with you some of the venues we also considered. venue-hunting photos are posted herec/o bryan.

Chapel of San Beda (Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat)the san beda chapel to me feels like home. i grew up hearing the 7am sto. nino mass here with all my cousins and titos/ titas from my mom's side. after mass we would buy puto and kutsinta outside, and head off to mcdonald's in greenhills to have breakfast. good old days. i remember the latin songs, the smell of incense, and the smell of newly cut grass in the morning. i just love this church. too bad they do not hold weddings here anymore.

National Shrine of the Sacred Heartgorgeous, gorgeous altar ;) unfortunately when we did an ocular, we saw that there wasn't enough parking space and the entrance didn't feel so grand. i dunno, i just didn't get that "this is it" feeling i guess...

Diamond Hotelwhen we pencil booked Manila Cathedral, this was one of the other venue options that was close enough to the church, big enough for 200-250 guests, and it was airconditioned! i think walking around intramuros at 12noon looking for other venues made us realize we definitely weren't going to have a reception inside intramuros! so diamond became an option. we both loved that the pool area/ fountain was right outside the ballroom and had a good view of manila bay. but as with the other venues, i was a bit hesitant. i somehow knew i did not want to have a ballroom wedding reception. heehee.

so after weekends and weekends of going around in circles and debating over this and that, not to mention being fickle about my priorities, we finally made a choice. and here's a sneak peak of how they both look like, and perhaps why we chose them in the first place.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

let me begin by saying...NO we don't have a theme. and NO coral and teal is not the color motif of my entourage. HAHA! there i said it. but im totally digging the coral + teal color combination right now :) i think it's a good palette for a socal-ish drop dead gorgeous wedding <insert perfect lighting here and some freshly-picked garden flowers>. sigh!

unfortunately mr. im-too-macho-for-pink fiance is not too keen on having any shade of pink in our wedding. his picture of what that day might look like is a meet joe black inspired affair-- a lake, a well-lit gazeebo, black coat and tie, a skinny girl with a flimsy outfit (hehe)-- borderline morbid i must say. but in fairness, very high class, timeless and elegant indeed.

*swoon* hehehe oops i meant this next picture...

(white tiffany chairs FTW!)

so as couples must do, we ended up with a compromise. i've always wanted to have the color teal/ turquoise-- "shades of the sea" if i must say, as a reflection of our love for the beach. at one point i even thought of having a water/waves-inspired wedding, with matching wedding cake with an actual water fountain or some such thing, a waterfall backdrop, and a waterfall projector (oops! that was our little secret right there :P ) crazy!!! good thing we did not go with any of that. it was a wedding, not a children's party after all.

i still can't tell you what ours will look like, but for sure there will be a little bit of coral here, some teal there, and it will definitely be a classic, timeless, and elegant black suit affair. :)

ps. i love you mr. im-too-macho-for-pink fiance!!! hahaha... another one for you :P